With a knife, cut 1/8-inch-deep slits in the tomato tops in a cross pattern. Place the tomatoes cut-side down in a bowl.

7/8

Pour in enough boiling water to submerge them completely. Leave until the tomato skins start peeling off.

8/8

Carefully remove from the water, peel, and cut in half.

Text, photos and food cooked by Michal Martinek

Jul 8, 2015

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Kendall Conrad is a very good cook. “We entertain a lot,” she recently told me, as she began deconstructing a typical dinner party at her house in Santa Barbara, California, where she lives with her husband and two teenage daughters.

“Food is always served buffet style,” Kendall said. “I start with what protein I want to serve—steak or pork shoulder, for example—and build everything else around it. I love spices, bold flavors and Middle Eastern dishes.”

Tiki torches usually illuminate the path that leads guests from her house down to an outside fireplace and a creek that runs through the property. Trees are lit from below for a romantic effect. And Kendall always makes sure there is good music to dance to.

Sometimes her parties happen on the beach. “We build a bonfire and make a one-pot dish—something that you can easily reheat on the fire,” Kendall said, “chili or Moroccan chicken stew or coq au vin.”

She grew up in a culinary family—“Both my mother and my grandmother were fabulous cooks”—including Julia Child, who was a distant relative and lived nearby. “As a girl, I remember Aunt Julia coming over for lunch, and my mom making gazpacho and madras curry with all the garnishes.”

Today, Kendall designs accessories; her eponymous collection of handmade, traditional saddlery-inspired handbags, shoes and jewelry can be found in her three Southern California stores, as well as select stores around the world. But from her late teens to early 30s, Kendall worked successfully as a model, frequently traveling between Milan, Paris, New York and Los Angeles. This peripatetic lifestyle exposed her to new culinary adventures. “My boyfriends were my guinea pigs,” she said about this fun period when she was testing recipes and building her repertoire.

In 2006, she published Eat Well, Feel Well, a Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) cookbook with grain-free, starch-free and whole-food-based recipes. This bestseller, currently in its sixth printing, was a result of an exasperating time in Kendall’s life, when her baby daughter was diagnosed with irritable bowl syndrome after a series of ear infection antibiotics wreaked havoc on her digestive system. Instead of more medications and possibly surgery, Kendall followed a nutritionist’s advice and decided to heal her daughter with food.

“I developed quite a few recipes,” she remembered. “At the time, there weren’t that many cookbooks on the market, so I got creative with the limited tools I had.” Within a year, her daughter healed completely and has been disease-free ever since. In Kendall’s cookbook, child-friendly alternatives such as pancakes, pizza and fries coincide with more adult fare, like shepherd’s pie with mashed cauliflower, vodka-honey-cured salmon, or homemade limoncello.

Zucchini Tabbouleh

Kendall’s version of the classic Arabic side dish is grain- and gluten-free—she uses zucchini instead of the traditional bulgur—but it’s remarkably flavorful, thanks to fresh herbs and a good amount of lemon juice, and has a similarly crunchy texture. You may serve it with other mezze, to accompany roasted meats, or simply on its own as a salad.

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Serves 4

3 large tomatoes

5 medium zucchini, peeled

2 cups fresh flat-leaf parsley, leaves only

1 cup fresh mint, leaves only

7 scallions, white and green parts, thinly sliced

¼ cup lemon juice, freshly squeezed

1 medium shallot, peeled, minced

1 clove garlic, peeled, minced

¼ cup olive oil

Salt

Black pepper, freshly ground

1

With a knife, cut 1/8-inch-deep slits in the tomato tops in a cross pattern. Place the tomatoes cut-side down in a bowl, and pour in enough boiling water to submerge them completely. Leave until the tomato skins start peeling off. Carefully remove from the water, peel, and cut in half. With a spoon, remove the seeds and discard them. Dice the tomatoes and set aside.

2

Cut the zucchini in half, and place them in a food processor bowl fitted with a metal blade. Pulse a few times until small and grain-sized. Transfer to a bowl.

3

Place the parsley and mint in the same food processor bowl, and pulse until finely chopped. Add the herbs to the zucchini, and stir in the tomatoes and scallions.

4

In a small bowl, combine the lemon juice with the shallot, garlic and olive oil. Mix with the zucchini, and chill for minimum 30 minutes, or up to 4 hours. Season with salt and black pepper to taste, and serve.